Virginia Woolf

She was born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London, England on January 25, 1882. She was born to Sir Leslie Stephen, an editor and critic. In 1895, her mother died, a devastating trauma in her life. Within two years of her death, Woolf's older half-sister Stella, married and died due to complications in a pregnancy. During this period of Woolf's life is when she suffered her first mental breakdown, which continued to disrupt her life. The death of her brother Thoby further darkened her life. She married Leonard Woolf in 1912 and it was after her marriage that she was able to focus her attention on her writing.

Her writing often addressed the concerns Woolf has with women's experiences. One of her acclaimed works was A Room of One's Own. It is thought that this essay signifies a feminist voice and marks an achievement for women in the realm of English literature. This essay on women and writing, originated in a lecture given to female students at Cambridge. It addresses the problems women face within the literary arena: male privilege, female exclusion, and the constraints society places on women's creativity. In this essay, Woolf captures the struggles women face, in order to gain a voice in a society that attempts to silence women and maintain their submissiveness. The onset of her mental problems, hearing voices, resulted in Woolf committing suicide on March 28, 1941.

Some of her works include:

• A Room of One's Own
  
• Between the Acts
  
• Jacob's Room
  
• Night and Day
  
• Orlando: A Biography
  
• To the Lighthouse
  
• The Voyage Out
  
• The Waves

A very queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband.